Genius "making Money At Last."

The New York Sun bas the following very interesting recital of the. salient points in the life history and of the recent death of Williain T. Morgan, the seuior member of the Morgans & Wilcox Wood Type Manufacturing Company of Middletown, N. Y., of the of t-repeated story of the willo'-the-wisp chase of Genius after Fortune, and of securing the priz only on the brink of the grave: "Wïliiam T. Morgans died of pneumonía at Middletown, on April 14. He was a Sullivan county boy, born in Bethel only thirty-eiglit years ago. When he was a youngster of ten he made himself a printing press, supplied with worn-out type f rom the office of the Mouticello Watchman, now exCongressman Beebe's paper. An old Frenchman of the neighborhood, who had worked at setting tht Greek type In Worcester's dlctionary, gave nim lessonsin type-setting. But, as far as the obseivaüons of Morgana, Sr., country editors were uot naking any money. He recognizeü me , joy's ingenuity, and sent himto Hcnry ( Deutach, at New Paltz, to learn watchTiaking. Then the war broke out. riie !)oy waited till he was eighteen, md tlïen enlisted in the 243d New i'ork. For threo years he wore the alue, never lost a day's service, and jame home Lieutenant in Command of Company. He was brevet captain. He was just of age ; so he got mai ried. He went back to watch-raaking, hut &oou was tinkering at his oíd presa again, and decided Uiat he must have a newspaper. He was then in CaJicoon. Some of the local politioiaus agreed with bim that Calicoon ought to have a newspaper, and promised to rftise the $300 or $400 he wanted. He made arraugementa with W. A. llasbrouck, proprietor of the Orange County Press, at Middletowu, for a lot of secondhand type. But thu politiciana ut Calicoon intioaated that iL they f urnished the money they should expect to furnish the opinions of the paper, Morgana would not hear to that. Mr. Hastbrouck agreed with him, and gave him type on credit. Morgaus went over to the tannery of his fatherin-luw and said to him: "Let me have that old maple log lying out ther." "Of course," said Mr. Inderlied, "Lake her along." This was just about what Mr. Iudeilied had said to the young man when he had asked for a much arpatpr crift aome months before. gans took the log, which was very perCectly rounded, sawed off a section, covered it with a piecö of canvas for au "apron," got a piece of au old tombstone for the platen, and rigged up a cylinder press, on which he printed the first edition and inany othereditionsof the Calicoon Recorder, a paper yet flourishing. He had no good job press, and so he invented one. He called it the Hercules Press. It is in the market tcday, but, as has happened to many inventors, he reaped little or none of the profits. He sold the Recorder, went to Liberty and started the Liberty Register. Soon he had one of the best printing offices in the state, but he lost that luo. One Saturday uight he went to bed with nothing in the world, but a mighty active brain and a growing family. He had long been studyiug upon a machine for ïnaking wood type. That night he went to sleep tlunking ol ms type machine. He awoke thinking of it. " I looked at my c!ock when I awoke," he said to a Sun reporter last spring, "and it was five minutes to 0. Then I thought of the machine, and like a flash it soemed to me I saw the whole thing. I sprung out of bed and pulled on my clothes. As I did so I glanced at the clock. It was jast 12 o'clock. I kuow I hadn't been asleep. If I was asleep it was quite aa wonderful, for I had made my invention. I rushed over to the office and drew a plan, and then with pieces of reglet acd stubs of pencils I made a model. Lt worked all right. Then I went home and got breakfast." Out of some rough mftterials procured at the blacksmiths' aud some old fanuing machine wheels, he made a Vough machine, aud showed George Youngs of Napanoch, Ulster oouuty, what it would do. Youngs is one of the Youngs of Youngsville, and he had money. Morgana built a good machine in JSapanoch. ïhe Youngs & Morgans Manufacturing Company was formed, and began to sliell out wood tjpeby the bushei Morgans kopt his precious machine in a strong room, and no one but Gsorge Youngs saw it. No one but these two and Mis. Morgans have ever seeii ene of the machines. One night in April of 1880 the flrm was bumed out. Morgans decided to remove the business to Middletown. Youngs sold out his interest, except in the machine, and Morgans took a new partner in the business. A big building was put up. A strong room was built, and Morgans went at it hammer and toncs to build a new machine. When a Sun reporter visiteo the shop inApri!, 1881, one of the ordinary typeeuttiog machines was at work. In these machines a large frame swings on an arm. At one point is a chisel revolving 15,000 times a minute. Under this a block of wood is fastened. At another point in the frame is a tracer, and when the operator traces a pattern at this point tho chisel cuts the same pattern in tho blück. With these machines thé pattern is always larger than the letter to be cut- that is, it reduces. It i impossible to reproduce with it. A difflculty is here experienced in making borders f or two colora in wood. Alter one lot is made and the machine altered or changed to a different size it is almost impossible to resot it so that a continuation of the same border will match the flrst one out. Near one of these machines in Morgans' type faotory is a heavy floor, and D6HT that a small window with a screen so airanged that nothing in the room can be seen. Morgans went in. There was the rattle of machinery, and soon he shovelled type out of the window by the peck. "I can do the work of four men," he said when he carne out; "I can make type faster than one man can saw the blocks. I can enlarge, reduce or reproduce, and, last of all, I can make a half dozen different letters at the same time. You say, 'Seeing's believing.' Well, then, you won't believe. No man can see that machine. Why don't I patent it? Why, l'd not make a cent on it. It is simple and once seen, cauld easily be changed a little, you see, and so repatented. No, 1 can make more by keepicg niy own invention to myself, and using itriglit here." Morgaus at that time had uearly completed a presa to print four colors at one impression, had patentednewspaper counter so simple that it can be used with any press, had found a new mode of polishing his wood blocks, aml at parting said to the reporter: "I'm making money at last, aftel years of poverty, and if I don't have auy bad luck 111 promise you another invention bsforo long that beats the type machine all to pieces." __ - ■